The Shadow And The Chaos Demon
by ShimoRyu
Summary: Kage is a young girl/thief who, ever since her parent died, has been left to deal with her personal demons for most of her life. Kotaro is a ninja who comes off as uncaring and has been perceived to be a demon himself. After one life-changing moment however, the demon ninja gains an apprentice to guide in his ways. Kotaro and OC non-romance fic this is purely a family type story.
1. Chapter 1

Guess what? I'm bringing this story back! I'm still not exactly positive where I'm going with this one, but I've decided to give it my best shot! Above all with this story however though, feed back is greatly appreciated, and I'm okay with plot suggestions as well. I'm going to try to follow Kotaro's story path from Samurai Warriors 3 though. Ad now that that note is done, let's begin!

* * *

Kotaro walked through the village that had suffered greatly in a recent battle. Houses were destroyed, innocents lay dead and everything had overall been thrown into disaster. The ninja of chaos was used to the time of war, and in fact almost seemed to enjoy it most of the time, but even he was slightly surprised at the cruelty of the enemy. The village was simply in the way of the battle, and so it was decimated without a second thought. Nothing was left except debris. There were no visible survivors for most of a walk through. Until he came across a young girl just standing there. She saw the ninja that many assumed was a demon, but just simply stood there, showing no signs of fear. In fact there was seemingly nothing in her eyes that showed any signs of caring for the lost village even though that was obviously her home.

Kotaro walked over to her. "Everything you know is gone, and yet you show no sadness, no fear."

The girl looked up at him with a completely serious expression. "I have no reason to. I've been an orphan all my life, ever since my mother died and my father left." She turned back to staring forward at the destruction. "I've had to fend for myself all my life. Stealing and sneaking around just to survive."

Kotaro had another thought occur. "You do not fear me either."

"I've obviously had to deal with my personal demons my whole life. Plus if you want to survive on your own, you have to abandon fear. If you're too afraid to do something, then it could cause a fatal misstep or mistake." For a girl seemingly around twelve years old she spoke with great seriousness. She was definitely the type who had to grow up too fast. The sympathetic side of the chaos ninja was suddenly being felt the more he talked to her.

"What's your name?" He asked. "Kage." The girl simply replied. "It's not my real name but the people selling food at the village market used to say that a shadow carried off their goods when something went missing. So I adopted the name."

_She sounds like the type who would become a skilled ninja with some training._ "Kage, how about you come to Odawara Castle? I could teach you to hone your talents, and you would have a place to stay."

Kage looked up at Kotaro once again with that serious look. "I have nowhere else to go." Then she smiled and nodded. "So I'll gladly come!"

* * *

As a final note, I'm doing something not often done with Kotaro's personality. In his storyline from three, it is shown that he does genuinely care about both Kai and Ujiyasu (in my eyes at least) but shows it in ways that most people wouldn't. So for this one I'm doing a balence of his caring side with his well... Kotaro side! If I ever get too OOC please call me on it thanks!


	2. Chapter 2

Alright there are a lot of time-skips in this chapter and for that I will apologize ahead of time for. I am working towards making this story better than the original ideas I had for it so like I said in the first chapter, any and all feedback will be helpful! (Constructive criticism only though please!)

* * *

Chapter One

After a few days the two of them arrived at Odawara Castle. The moment they walked through the entrance, Kotaro and Kage were "attacked" by Kai, and simply greeted by Ujiyasu.

"Who's this?" Kai asked as she saw the girl standing next to Kotaro.

"This Kage, she's my apprentice." Kotaro smiled at the look on Kai's face, and even Kage had a slight smile on her face. Ujiyasu on the other hand didn't seem surprised at all. If the girl didn't seem the least bit frightened around him, then obviously the two would be fine. Kotaro looked down at Kage then back at Kai and Ujiyasu. "Kage, this is Kai and Ujiyasu. Ujiyasu is our lord and leader of the Hojo clan. Kai is sort of his student."

"Pleasure to meet you both." Kage said simply as she bowed. Then Kotaro led her down the halls of the castle. The maze of hallways and stairs was difficult to follow but eventually they stopped at a door.

This will be your room." Kotaro said. "I expect to see you in the courtyard first thing in the morning for you first lesson." Then he opened the door to his room next door and disappeared inside. Kage walked into her room and barely looked around for a few seconds before curling up and going into the first peaceful sleep she'd had in years.

The next morning the student and teacher stood in the center of the castle courtyard. Kage's first test was to simply sneak up on Kotaro. He'd have his eyes closed which made the task sound simple, but there was a catch. There were several near invisible strings strung all around, and each one had a bell on the end. When touched, the string would cause the bell to jingle alerting Kotaro to Kage's exact location. So in truth not as easy as it was originally thought to be. Kage walked over to one of the corners of the courtyard. All she had to do was complete the challenge three times in a row and training would be done for the day. Kotaro from his spot in the center raised his hand in the signal to begin.

Kage quietly made her way towards the center not going in a straight path in hopes of not hitting one of the strings, and was doing quite well to avoid them until she was about six feet away from Kotaro. The sound of a bell was heard as her foot hit the trip wire, and a kunai knife flew past her face missing on purpose. "Try again."

This happened several more times until Kage finally made to her teacher and tapped him on the shoulder. "Good, now two more times."

The next two tries ended in failure, and ended up being temporally paused as Kai had seen the kunai fly past Kage. This only led to an argument on teaching methods, which was won by Kotaro when Kai eventually (after wasting at least twenty minutes of their time) decided it was pointless to argue with him. After that Kage managed to make it through the three times after careful memorization of the position of the bells.

"Good work. We'll try again tomorrow and see if you can clear it faster." Upon hearing that Kage nodded and walked back to her room.

The next week and a half or so was spent working on this until Kage could fully master working out were the trap was by the most subtle signs. The trick, as she eventually learned, was to look at a certain angle or if it was in the shadows reflect some light onto the area to find it. Using this knowledge she was eventually able to clear the three times in a row without any trial runs and mistakes.

She was giving two days off from practice then came the day of weapons practice. There were four targets set in a row across one side of the courtyard. Kage was shown how to throw a shuriken and then was given four to throw at the targets. One ended up at the edge, the next just a little farther in than the first, the third in the first ring, and the fourth right in between the first and second rings. Her goal for today was on dead center, and after what felt like a hundred throws she finally made that goal.

It took much longer to master that and any of the other weapons then the walking quietly test did, but after a little over a month she had nearly mastered the kunai, shuriken, and battle claws that were Kotaro's weapon of choice. However she completely surprised her teacher when she chose a bamboo staff as her weapon. Even back when she was in her village, Kage was good with staves or make-shift ones. Often when she needed to defend herself, a large stick or piece of wood that could easily be found was her go-to method. Kage just thought it would be smart to pick something she was familiar with, and Kotaro just nodded. Kage then took her leave from their training area then grabbed a book from her room and tried to find a place to read quietly where Kai wouldn't find and bug her as usual.


	3. Beta Request and Update Announcement

Hello there to all my readers. I would like to say that after who-knows-how-long, I will finally be updating this story. Chapter three is the works right now since ideas have returned to me. However, just because ideas are coming back that doesn't mean that I'm very confident in this. I feel like my characterization is still off a little in the Samurai Warriors characters, and my sentence fluency and grammar could honestly use some work. So... I was wondering if anyone would like to please be a Beta Reader for this story. If you'd be interested in doing this please send me a PM. I really don't know anyone who would be interested so that's why I put it out via this. Thanks in advance!

-ShimoRyu


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